The present invention relates in its broadest aspects to waste management of sodium polysulfides, and more particularly to a method of removing sodium polysulfide from used sodium/sulfur batteries with the recovery of an alkaline sodium thiocyanate solution. Sodium thiocyanate is used, among other applications, in the chemical and the pharmaceutical industry for the production of organic thiocyanates, isothiocyanates, mustard oils, herbicides, pesticides and biocides; in the photo industry for coloring, sensitizing and stabilizing and for the production of brighteners in electroplating.
No method is known in the literature for the removal of sodium polysulfide from Na/S batteries with the simultaneous recovery of sodium thiocyanate.